| Seven years with Fast Forward, 13 years as a music critic in general, hundreds of reviews and articles, thousands of shows, bushels of CDs and what does it get you?
It ain’t all fun and games. You see me at a bar. Someone tells you that I write about music for Fast Forward. You have a drink, approach and slur up a conversation while I’m trying to listen to the band. I’m not clairvoyant, but I know what comes next. "Oh, it must be nice to listen to music all day," you say. Well, like most music writers in this city, I’m a freelancer. That means this job can’t support my horse habit (I have two – a paint and a quarter horse). So my day job is teaching high school to extremely at-risk kids with severe behavioural and emotional coding. Sound like hell? No, writing about music is hell because…
I don’t even like music anymore. You then say, "Yeah, but you get all that free music, eh?" Yes, sometimes I’ve got 15 to 20 CDs a week. Wow, sounds great! The only problem is, then I have to listen to them. And life’s not all Lucinda Williams and Lorrie Matheson you know. There’s new Rod Stewart (an oxymoron, I know) and that fat band from Winnipeg in that pile. Imagine doing your dishes in silence because you can’t stand to hear even one more twang. As a self-preservation device, my brain blocks out bad music and erases any memory of it, which is why I can Web surf and find articles I’ve written about bands I swear I’ve never heard of before. Which brings me to the next point.
It’s nothing personal. Various editors have told me that I’m one of the few people who actually gives honest (read: bad) reviews to local performers. Sometimes they’re even friends of mine. This influences nothing. Just because I’d rather fry my own hand and eat it than listen to your album, it’s not about you. Therefore, let’s make this deal…
Don’t ask – I won’t tell. The big day arrives and your CD release party is finally near. I phone you up – we banter. I find out about your history, your tastes, and even your dark little secrets. Then you ask how I liked your album, and I say your music reminds me of the sound cattle make when their genitals get stuck in barbed wire. I try to keep my opinion out of your article (unless it’s a CD review) but, hey, you had to ask… and my integrity says I have to be honest. So keep in mind…
My opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it. Hell, the only difference between my opinion and most people’s is a few dozen of my own crappy bands (so I feel your pain) and a few thousand more live shows. My opinion is worth no more than yours but…
You can’t buy it. Sure, chat me up, buy me some drinks, give me a band T-shirt, buy me some more drinks. Wonderful. I might get drunk and sleep with you, but I’ll still give your crappy album a bad review in the morning. None of this matters because…
If rock and roll is a vicious game, music reviewing is a stupid sport. Who cares what I think? If you like it, you like it. If you hate it, you hate it. I know this because…
The guilt is punishment enough. We once held a Fast Forward writers’ meeting at my house. The hair carpet from my Siberian Huskies got not a thought from me, but I seriously considered censoring my CDs. Why? I dreaded the moment someone would notice that my Paul McCartney and Wings collection is bigger than my Replacements section – that I have ABBA but no Tom Waits.
I can’t hear your press kit. I realize there are a lot of clueless critics out there, but most of us are not dumb enough to fall for a glitzy press kit. I mainly get it and lose it. So put the effort into your music. No, I didn’t see your video on TV ‘cause I don’t have one, I didn’t hear you on the radio ‘cause I drive in silence, and I don’t care who you opened for. These things are not about you – your CDs and gigs are about you. And that’s all I care about.
It makes me quiver. The most dreaded questions in an interview: a: "So, are you coming to the gig?" (local version) or b: "Will you come and say ‘Hi!’?" (celebrity version). The answer is usually no and no because a: I probably didn’t choose to write about you – my editor needed it written and I have seen you before and hated it or b: I’m shy and what am I supposed to say? "Oh, hi, I’m Mary-Lynn and we talked three weeks ago on the phone and I wanted to come back and say, like, I really like yer music…" So let’s just skip it, shall we?
Warning: I’m recording our conversation. It must be because I used to be a taxi driver (the poor man’s shrink), but a lot of my interviews end up like true confessions. Which Canadian singer spilled all about his continuing heroin habit when his band was sure rehab had stuck? Who was the member of country music’s first family that confessed to clandestine counselling sessions? Which well-worn face in the local scene said the Co-Dependents would be nobodies if they depended on their own songs? Who told me he was sleeping with not one but two girlfriends of members of the local band The … well, you get the point. A phrase I hear a lot is "I don’t usually talk to press about this but…" God you guys, quit talking to press about these things – we’re sharks!
You handle the music – I’ll handle the writing. One of the most memorable interviews this year was with a band I wrote about not because they were good, but because they fit into a theme issue we were doing. I didn’t actually hate the band to begin with, but then I heard their CD. Next, I interviewed a deluded singer who aspired to be the next Gowan. Then everyday for a week when I got home from work there would be another "suggestion" on my answering machine about how I should write the story, what logos and photos should be used, what the headline should say, etc. These are usually things my editor and I work out, so the meta-message was that we were too incompetent to do our jobs. With each phone call, that band’s share of the article shrank until they became a paragraph. Don’t talk to me if you don’t believe in what I do.
P.S. – did any of this piss you off? Good, because I love hate mail. We all do. That’s a trade secret, but we like to know someone’s responding. And if I haven’t had any for a few months, I’ll say to my boyfriend, "Hey, I think I’ll write this review to get some mail." Two weeks later, there’s my letter. Candy from a baby… |
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